| |
Germany secures a foothold in
Iran
By Safa Haeri
PARIS -
Iran has become the prize for which both the United
States and the European Union are fighting, with the EU
having already made huge investments in future
decision-makers, thus possessing a determining edge over
Washington, according to analysts.
The end game
is about the political return of Germany to the Middle
East, where other major players, namely the United
States, France, Britain and Russia, are present and have
their proxies, analysts say.
"From a long time
ago, Germany, aware of the importance of Iran as the
major economic, but also political and strategic power
in the region, and given the new situation created
following the Islamic revolution of 1979 that revived
Iranian nationalism, chose Iran as its principal ally
for its political return to this sensitive region,
building firm contacts with the new Iranian leaders,
including both the clerics and civilians, many of them
pro-German," Morteza Rai'si, an Iranian journalist based
in Bonn who has followed Iran-Germany relations for over
half a century, told Asia Times Online.
It is
important to note that Germany also played an important
role in Iranian industrialization, which was started by
Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty that was
toppled by the revolution of 1979. However, Germany
enjoyed a better image with the Iranians than the hated
British Empire on the one hand and the Soviet Union on
the other. These two countries were replaced in terms of
influence by the United States after the pro-monarchy
coup of 1953, staged with the assistance of the Central
Intelligence Agency. All three - Britain, the Soviet
Union and the US - were widely viewed as plunderers of
Iranian wealth, imperialist powers imposing their
policies on Iran and humiliating a nation and people
proud of their ancient civilization.
"It was
Hans Dietrich Genscher, the former German foreign
minister, who, in order to create a balance between
Germany as an economic giant and political dwarf, and
aware of the fact that the ayatollahs, who had ended the
overwhelming American presence in Iran, had turned to
Europe to thwart American pressures and sanctions,
decided to use Tehran as a jumping spring board for
Berlin's re-entry in the region," explained Kambiz
Roosta, a veteran Iranian political activist and human
rights campaigner based in Berlin.
"Not only
does this policy continue today, but also in its quest,
Berlin is strongly backed by Paris, which, because of it
challenging Washington's hegemonic policies, is very
popular in Iran and among other Middle East nations,
except Israel," added Roosta in a telephone conversation
with Asia Times Online.
"At the end of the day,
it was the EU that got Iran to sign the Additional
Protocol to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty] and which
is pressing the ruling conservatives to normalize ties
with the United States," Ra'isi noted.
"All the
world's major nations have reached the conclusion that
the [Middle East] region needs a strong power; which
cannot be any other than Iran, where Germany, rich and
with a very positive record, would have a privileged
position," Ra'isi said, explaining Berlin's close
relations with the Islamic Republic, a regime that
Germany is well aware is isolated on the international
scene and which has internal political problems too.
In the view of other Iranian observers, while
the United States is banking on the collapse of the
theocratic regime in Iran and pushing strongly for
regime change, the European Union, including Britain, is
served by better "humint" (human intelligence) in
contrast to that of the US and will tell its governments
that the ayatollahs are here to stay for "quite a long
time" and to adopt a policy of "critical dialogue".
Though unpopular with the majority of the
Iranians, and particularly among the young generation
which makes up 70 percent of the population, the
conservatives remain the ultimate decision-makers in
Iran, where all key posts are controlled by them and the
leader has the ultimate word on every major issue.
"There is no real threat against this regime and
the atomic issue, the biggest threat to the Islamic
Republic, was solved thanks to the EU negotiating with
Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the influential secretary of
Iran's Supreme Council for National Security, who was
discovered and cultivated by the Germans a decade ago,"
Ra'isi said.
Iran has admitted that it produced
small amounts of low enriched uranium using both
centrifuges and laser enrichment processes ... and that
it had failed to report a large number of conversion,
fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear
material, including the separation of a small amount of
plutonium. As a result of the admission, and because of
its willingness to inspections of its nuclear
facilities, Iran has escaped international sanctions.
Among the subjects discussed between the foreign
ministers of Britain, France and Germany with Rohani,
beside the nuclear issue, was the normalization of ties
with the US, which is now in progress and which will be
fully addressed once the ruling conservatives secure
control of the next majlis (parliament), another Iranian
source who was in Vienna at the height of Iran's
negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency
last November and who has first-hand information about
the talks, told Asia Times Online on condition of
anonymity.
"One day or another, Iran will
establish relations with the United States. All of our
abilities and art should be used for deciding the most
opportune moment," a 56-year-old cleric who is close to
both the leader of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the
second man in command, said in an interview published in
the newspaper Le Figaro on January 17.
Very
probably, it was on recommendations from Berlin that
France reserved an almost head of state welcome for
Rohani, considered by many Iranian observers as "the
rising star" representing what Western analysts have
termed as "neo-conservatives", when he visited Paris 10
days ago, meeting French President Jacques Chirac,
Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin and the
Speaker of the Senate.
The clerics who rule Iran
realize that normalizing ties with Washington is a must,
hence their determination to start talks on a
semi-official level after securing the next majlis,
which will then give them the green light to the process
- blocked until now because of rivalries between the two
wings of the Iranian leadership.
"With no
domestic reformist threat on the horizon, the
conservatives may choose to pursue a policy of
engagement with Washington, even compromising on such
issues as weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, Israel
and human rights," wrote Sanam Vakil, a doctoral
candidate and lecturer in Middle East Studies at the
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies,
who was recently in Iran, for the Beirut-based The Daily
Star of January 21.
"A conservative victory and
unified government could also provide a solid opening
for engagement with the United States. [President
Mohammad] Khatami was allowed to pursue a policy of
detente and dialogue that restored Iran's reputation
with the European Union and the Arab world, but little
progress has been made with the US," she added, noting,
however, that this process would be delicate as the Bush
administration and the EU have denounced the
disqualification of a great number of reformist
lawmakers running for the upcoming legislative elections
by the powerful Guardians Council (GC), a
conservative-controlled body that vets all candidates to
all elections in Iran and which also goes through all
laws passed by majlis to see if they are in conformity
with the Sharia, or Islamic canons.
Responding
to the outrage expressed inside and outside Iran on the
disqualifications, Ayatollah Khamenei, who appoints six
senior clerics out of the 12 members of the GC, urged
the guardians to "review" the decision, which the
reformists have rejected vehemently, threatening to
resign en mass, including the president, and also to
boycott the elections, a threat that few take seriously,
reminding that such threats in the past had never been
carried out for fear of encouraging popular demands for
radical changes in the constitution.
"This is
the most vicious and poisonous gift the leader could
offer the reformists," Ali Keshtgar, a political
activist and editor of the Paris-based Mihan (Homeland)
monthly described in a conversation with Asia Times
Online.
Explaining his view, he said: "When the
Guardians Council disqualified the reformist candidates,
public opinion, regardless of its apathy towards them,
expressed sympathy without solidarity. Now that the GC
has bowed to the leader's demand, the same opinion would
turn more violently against the reformist lawmakers,
having the feeling that they created all the noise just
for saving their own political advantages. If the
disqualified candidates are allowed to run, the voters
would punish them by not voting for them."
Ms
Vakil confirmed in her article: "By doing so [urging the
GC to review the mass disqualifications] he [Khamenei]
would come across as a benevolent leader supportive of
democracy. This maneuver would be astute, considering
the apathy that has taken hold of the Iranian
electorate. In light of the lack of popular
participation in the last municipal elections, as well
as the generally pessimistic mood among youths after the
protests and arrests last summer, it is likely that the
decline in voter participation will continue, enabling
conservative candidates to dominate in the forthcoming
elections."
And Mohammad Javad Larijani, an
advisor to the leader and the head of the international
department of the conservative-controlled judiciary,
told the news agency Reuters: "I think we should go
easier on the reformists because they are going to lose
enough seats to make us happy. Disillusioned with failed
promises of reform and declining living standards, many
Iranians have lost faith in Khatami and the reformists
after nearly seven years in power, dong nothing for the
people."
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
